426 – al-ʿAzīz Abū Manṣūr ibn Jalāl al-Dawlah ibn Bahāʾ al-Dawlah*
Al-Malik al-ʿAzīz, Abū Manṣūr (1), son of al-Malik Jalāl al-Dawlah Abū Ṭāhir ibn Bahāʾ al-Dawlah ibn ʿAḍud al-Dawlah, was one of the last Buwayhid kings.
He excelled in belles-lettres and composed agreeable verse. He was the first to be addressed with the elaborate honorifics borne by the monarchs of our own time. His realm, however, was already unraveling: Abū Kālijār, as we have mentioned, overpowered him, and he remained for seven years in a shaky sovereignty. He died outside Mayyāfāriqīn in 441 AH.
His Persian name was Khusraw Fīrūz ibn Fīrūz ibn Khurra Fīrūz ibn Fannā Khusraw ibn Ḥasan ibn Buwayh.
He was born in Basra in 407 AH. He served his father as governor of Wāsiṭ, mastered literature and historical lore, but gave himself over to amusement and dissoluteness—may Allah grant us well-being.
He is the one who said:
“Whoever grows weary of me, let him prudently keep his distance;
for whenever I cross his path, prudence deserts me.
The world in all its breadth has never narrowed around me
so that you would find me courting a man who spurns me.”
When his father Jalāl died, al-ʿAzīz left Wāsiṭ and stayed with the Arab chieftain Dubays ibn Mazyad al-Asadī. He then made for the Diyār Bakr region, seeking aid from its rulers, but his fortunes had collapsed. He died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal, at Mayyāfāriqīn, in 441 AH.